THE DESERT AND THE WAY

In the Liturgy of the Word, this second Sunday of Advent, two symbols emerge: the desert and the road. But what is the desert for us Christians? According to Scripture, the desert is the space where faith is verified (cf. Dt 8,2-5), the place where the child is weaned (cf. Dt 32,10-12) and, last but not least, the place of death in view of a new life (cf. Nu 20,5). For the Talmud, the desert is a land where God reveals himself: in the desert (midbar) God makes himself present as The One who Speaks (medabber). Advent is therefore the propitious time for verification, and for a return to essentiality and sobriety in view of listening to the Word of God. John the Baptist is the man of the desert; he is the voice that shouts and calls for conversion, he is the finger that points out the presence of the Messia, the eye that peers into the depths of the heart, denouncing the evil that reigns there. Such is the Christian, shaped in the desert by the Word or by a prophecy (for those who are far away) a sign that directs them to Christ, a gaze of faith among the complexities of history. Together with the desert, we have a second image, the road, seen as conversion, active acceptance of the Word. Without an experience based on the Gospel, we risk building on sand. But the path ahead does not have just a uniform moral character; on that path we are called to an encounter, the one with Christ. Alone, at the source of our own innate Source, we will become, for our brothers and sisters, living water that wells up in the dry deserts of our existence.

Lord,
along the desert road,
may my prayer
like those of pure souls,
no longer be anything other than a reflection of You
that returns to You when you bend over me.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey